Il dibattito internazionale intorno alla conservazione e alla documentazione della New Media Art 1995-2007

My PhD research project “Conservation and Documentation of New Media Art. The Debate between\nthe Italian Tradition and International Strategies” deals with the theoretical issues related to the\nstrategies of conservation and documentation of New Media Art. I am especially interested in\nattempting a comparative analysis of the international theories of conservation of technology-based\nmedia works. In contemporary art the format and the presentation of the artwork is constantly\nchanging, as the broad availability of new technologies continues to grow very quickly. Over the past\nten years, the problems of long-term preservation and documentation of New Media Art have been a\ncentral issue within the international debate initiated by a network of American and North-European\nmuseums of contemporary art. In the XX-th century, New Media artworks represented the most\nsignificant artistic creations within the art-world. At the same time, such artworks are a challenge for\nmuseums that have been collecting them, as they are made with new, non-traditional technologies and\nmedia, such as video, film, computers, media installations and digital formats. As a new artistic display,\nNew Media Art has changed the perception of artistic practices since the Sixties. The special element\nthat defines a New Media Art work is its “proceeding character”, related to the inner temporality of the\nwork. For instance, a movie shot on film may, with new technologies, be transferred onto DVD and\nconverted into a digital format, on magnetic tape, or it may be reproduced as a Quicktime or Windows\nMedia Player file. It can be displayed on the internet at low resolution or may even be sent and received\nover the web, therefore traveling in a completely “immaterial” format. Furthermore, the short life and\nthe very quick obsolescence of the hardware does not allow an easy development of strategies regarding\nthe conservation of New Media Art works. The international debate concerning the preservation of this\nnew aesthetic category of art is focused in particular on the problem of documentation. In other words,\nit is necessary to consider that without an adequate conservation and documentation many art works\nwill be lost to future generations. This is also the reason why theories and tools of conservation are to\nbe urgently developed by the international, scientific community. Documenting the memory of the\npresent represents a real challenge for curators, conservators and restorers. It is their task to ensure the\n“access” to the digital heritage for generations, to come.\nOver the last decade, several international projects have focused on research relating to the general\ncriteria and the strategies of conservation and documentation. First of all, it is indispensable to define\nwhat must be preserved and how. Since it is impossible to preserve everything, it is necessary to make a\nselection. Like every choice, this process is discriminating and therefore needs to be supported by\nagreed standards and common theoretical references able to assure their correctness and transparency.\nIn the light of their “ephemeral” nature New Media Art works are also called “Variable” or “Unstable\nMedia”. The first definition of “Variable Media” was proposed in 1998 by Jon Ippolito, who, at that\ntime, was Associate Curator at the Guggenheim Museum of New York. This definition is related to the\nvariability of the physical formats for transmission. The so-called “Variable Media approach” seeks to\nunderstand the intended behaviour of the art work and its inherent characteristics, through the\ndocumentation of the artist’s intent. In 2002, the Guggenheim Museum and the Daniel Langlois\nFoundation for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal have established a special partnership for a\nconsortium of contemporary art museums, named Variable Media Network. The aim of this consortium\nof international museums was inventing and sharing new approaches, new strategies and tools for\npreserving New Media Art works in museum collections. A major incentive to do so was inadequate\ndocumentation and technological obsolescence. This initiative has been developed through a series of\nconferences, symposiums and meetings around the world. As Gaby Wijers, the Dutch conservator of\nThe Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Art, said: “the ‘variable media\napproach’ proposes that the best way to preserve artworks in ephemeral formats, from stick spirals to\nvideo installations to Web sites, is to encourage artists to describe them in a medium-independent way,\nso as to help translate them into new forms once their current medium becomes obsolete.”1 In\nNorthern Europe there were also other institutions involved in the preservation of New Media Art. In\n2003, the archive team of the V_2 Organization in Rotterdam conducted fundamental research on the\ndocumentation aspects of the preservation of electronic art activities. This pioneer project was called\nCapturing Unstable Media, and it focused on an approach balancing archiving and preservation initiatives.\nThis project presented a broad inventory of case studies that have developed a different methodology.\nRather than taking a static approach on modern and contemporary art, it primarily defined which\nimmaterial and physical components of New Media Art work should be documented, described or\npreserved. In general, the main question is: “HOW TO PRESERVE AN ARTWORK THAT\nDEPENDS ON ELECTRONIC DEVICES THAT MIGHT BE OBSOLETE IN A FEW YEARS?”\nIt is not very easy to answer this question, but one can say that every work of art has a sort of internal\nlinguistic code, which could also be identified by applying the concept of “aura”, in order to quote\nWalter Benjamin. For instance, computer-based work of art has a “computer code”, a set of\ninstructions that tells the machine what to do and when. This “computer code” should be preserved\nbecause it represents the original part of the art work and the place where the artist conceptualized his\nor her idea. As Wijers said: “the traditional codes for the visual arts, such as uniqueness of the physical\nmanifestation, are not applicable to video art [New Media Art]. The work of art is certainly unique and\nauthentic, but its tangible form as such is not”.2 The Italian theorist Cesare Brandi in his famous book\nTheory of Restoration published in 1963 writes about the concept of “unità potenziale” - the potential\nunity of the artwork.3 Brandi asserts that the final aim of any kind of restoration strategy is the\npreservation, and eventually the re-composition of the original information. The Theory of Restoration\nrefers most of all to painting, sculpture and traditional art, but its principles can, in my opinion, also be\nused as an interesting starting point to address strategies in respect of New Media Art. In order to find\ncommon solutions and useful criteria for conservation and documentation it is very important to gather\nand compare all the different theories developed by international museums involved in New Media Art.\nThe aim of my research project is to study the strategies developed in a number of museums in the\nUnited States and Europe and to compare them to the Italian approach, in order to acquire the\nknowledge for the development of this pioneering issue in Italy.\n1 Rif. Gaby Wijsers, Preservation and / or Documentation. The Conservation of Media Art, 2005, published in\nwww.montevideo.nl/en/nieuws/detailC.php?id=72\n2 Ibidem\n3 Cesare Brandi was an Italian intellectual, art historian and critic. In 1939 he founded the Istituto Centrale del\nRestauro in Rome, with Giulio Carlo Argan. In 1963 he wrote the book Theory of Restoration, which was later\ntranslated in English, French, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, German, Japanese and Chinese.\nIn the course of my current research, I had the possibility to interact with the following international\npublic institutions: MoMA, Guggenheim Museum, Electronic Art Intermix, New York; Daniel Langlois\nFoundation, Montreal; SFMoMA, San Francisco (my PhD Tutor is Rudolf Frieling, Curator of Media\nArts); ZKM (Center for Arts and Media), Karlsruhe; MonteVideo, Amsterdam; V_2 Organization,\nRotterdam; the platform rhizome.org; TATE Modern, London. These museums have been developing\nNew Media Art preservation, by promoting research projects, case studies and laboratory experiments.\nIn addition, they frequently organize symposiums and projects, in order to share the results available\nwith the museum network at large.

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